Amateur Astronomer

Stripes on Jupiter

April 26, 2008 on 6:46 am | In Astronomy, Hardware |

I got to see the stripes on Jupiter for the first time this morning. I was up at 5:50 this morning and decided to venture into the backyard. The sky was clear but lightening already, so the only two objects still visible in the sky were the Moon and Jupiter, about 5 degrees apart in the southern sky. It only took a couple of minutes to get everything set up; my Meade 4502 sits under a covered porch in the backyard and was acclimatized. With my medium eyepiece in I was able to see four of the moons and barely see three distinct stripes on Jupiter. I tried viewing with my 4mm eyepiece, but it had been inside the house and fogged up just as I was getting Jupiter in focus.

On a side note, I put the telescope together with the garage sale mount on the Meade legs. The garage sale mount works better for small adjustments since I don’t have the motors for the Meade mount. The Meade tripod is a lot better than the wooden legs the garage sale mount came with, so it all works out for the best. I’ll post some pictures in a week or two.